QR codes for boats
Relief captains, charter guests, a new tech, the owner’s family. Anyone who scans the code on her dash gets her startup steps, her quirks and where everything lives, with photos.
No app and no login. You write the guide once, and it’s there every time someone steps aboard.
Example scan
Tern
Getting under way
Tap a step as you go. Ticks stay on the phone for six hours, then clear.
Her quirks
Where things live
Checked Sep 2, 2026. Harbor Yacht Care · (954) 555 0142
What goes in her guide
Every boat has things that aren’t in any manual. Her guide is where they live, written for this hull and kept by the people who look after her.
Step by step, in the order you write them: getting under way, shutting down, switching to generator.
Flag a step as critical and it stands out on the page, with a line on why it matters.
The things you only learn by running her. She pulls to port in reverse. The forward head needs its breaker on.
Shore power cord, spare impellers, fuel shutoffs, life jackets. On this boat, not boats in general.
A picture of the seacock handle does more than a paragraph about it.
The page shows when the guide was last checked, so nobody trusts a stale one.
Who it’s for
Relief and delivery captains.
Everything they would otherwise call you about at six in the morning.
Charter guests and family.
How to get under way, and what not to run at the same time.
New techs and subcontractors.
Where the strainers and shutoffs are on this boat.
A second code in the engine room.
Put one on the bulkhead by the door. Today it opens the same guide.
You stay in control
How to print one
YachtGrade prints the code sheet: the code, her name, one line of instruction and your company name, in black on white. What you print it on decides whether it survives a season at the helm.
Matte, never gloss.
Sun on a glossy laminate throws back glare a phone camera can’t see through. It’s the most common way a printed code fails.
Black on white.
No brand colors behind the code. Put your logo beside it, not under it.
50 mm at the helm, 75 mm in the engine room.
Size it for how far away someone stands and how bad the light is.
A material that survives where it goes.
At the helm, cast vinyl with a UV blocking matte overlaminate, or a polycarbonate plate. In the engine room, anodized aluminum, fastened to the bulkhead by the door, never on the engine.
Clean the spot with alcohol.
Isopropyl alcohol, not soapy water. Soap leaves a film that lifts a tag within a season.
Scan it where it lives.
Test it in place, in the light it actually gets, before you leave the boat.
If she’s your own boat
A code on the dash is worth as much to an owner as to a company, especially on a boat other people run.
Ask whoever looks after her.
If your yard or captain uses YachtGrade, ask them to put her guide on the dash before the next guest steps aboard.
Or write it yourself.
One boat is enough. The minimum is $59 a month, which covers up to three boats, and you write her guide once.
Her checklist and her log are free too.
A boat inspection checklist and a boat maintenance log, both printable, both free.
Either way, it stays yours to change.
Revoke a code, reissue it, or rewrite a step the day something aboard changes.
Prove it, then own it
30 days free on up to 3 boats. No card and no sales call.
Four promises
A boat’s guide helps the people aboard. It doesn’t replace her manuals, proper training or the captain’s judgment.